I don't buy bottled water, but I have plenty of access to it. I've drunk a number of brands and most of them taste like...water. But someone handed me a couple of Evians, which I thought tasted soapy. I had the second one yesterday and it tasted the same. Needless to say, I'm not going out of my way to drink Evian again.

I don't drink bottled water. Actually, the tap water in the Buffalo area is quite tolerable. A while ago visitors from Dallas commented on how good the tap water here tastes compared to the Dalls tap water, where they always have to buy bottled water.

I never buy bottled still water, which seems just silly to me, particularly since, like Howie's situation, our local city water is quite good - in fact, they do a tongue-in-cheek thing of giving away PET bottles at races and other public events, bearing an artsy-yuppie label with the name "PURE TAP."

(Exception: Traveling in much of Central America and South America and some parts of Asia, it's prudent to drink bottled water, but that's a whole 'nother story.)

Also, I do buy bottled sparkling water, just because I like sparkling water ... but even there, I don't find the boutique name brands superior to the cheapest available grocery-store brand.

Also, I do buy bottled sparkling water, just because I like sparkling water ... but even there, I don't find the boutique name brands superior to the cheapest available grocery-store brand.

I have a recent exception to this. I bought Schweppe's brand club soda recently, and it had an odd taste to it, as if cherry essence had been added. Not that there's anything wrong with cherry essence, mind you, but it doesn't belong in a product labeled club soda.
Anyway, to answer the original question, I don't often buy bottled. We have an RO system on our muni water, and that tastes fine to me. I do like Panna, and in sparkling, San Pellegrino.

John Tomasso wrote:We have an RO system on our muni water, and that tastes fine to me.[/url]

Conventional wisdom here is that the size of the Mighty Ohio, and our safe distance downriver from the outflow of Cincinnati, means that the river water (from which we get our municipal water) is reasonably clean when it gets here and does not require heavy treatment. Also, that which does not kill us makes us strong.

[url]I do like Panna, and in sparkling, San Pellegrino.

Me too, or I love opening and enjoying the Italian bottles, anyway. I wonder if I could really substantiate that on blind tasting, though. I might try it today.

I never buy bottled still water, which seems just silly to me, particularly since, like Howie's situation, our local city water is quite good - in fact, they do a tongue-in-cheek thing of giving away PET bottles at races and other public events, bearing an artsy-yuppie label with the name "PURE TAP."

(Exception: Traveling in much of Central America and South America and some parts of Asia, it's prudent to drink bottled water, but that's a whole 'nother story.)

Also, I do buy bottled sparkling water, just because I like sparkling water ... but even there, I don't find the boutique name brands superior to the cheapest available grocery-store brand.

I'm definitely with you on this one, Robin. I consider bottled water, yuppie targeted shuck and jive - maybe because I've been to a few plants. And while I have two syphon bottles I am not really enamored of the taste I get from "sparking" my own water - although if one buys the nitrous oxide cartridges...but I digress... I do buy sparkling bottled water, but the outlets are few and far between and get further apart and even scarcer as time goes by.

I don't often buy bottled water - I think our tap water is just fine. My wife, OTOH, periodically finds our tap water over-chlorinated, so she buys it to keep in the car. She usually gets whatever is cheapest.

For sparkling, we buy Pellegrino, but only rarely. I'll also buy Canada Dry Club Soda once in a while for use as a mixer.

Penn and Teller did a wonderful show about bottled water in their "Bull$#!t!" series. It confirmed what I had always believed- bottled water is just someone else's tap water. But it does get a chance to marinate a polyethylene terephthalate bottle...

John Tomasso wrote: I do like Panna, and in sparkling, San Pellegrino.

Panna is pretty good for still, but like others, can't really see the point of bottled still water unless the tap water is rubbish. We have a plug in filter/water cooler at home due to visible lime in the water - without it the kettle scales up inside a week

Used to drink San Pelligrino (and it is pretty good I suppose), but once we discovered it was part of Coca-Cola Corp, moved onto other Italian frizzante's such as Ferrarelle.

The Italians seem to have grasped the concept that lightly sparking is more pleasant than the more gaseous fizzies we get in UK. Ideal for mealtimes.

When we first lived in Southern California, I migrated to bottled water based on my experience with the better taste of coffee and tea. The impurities in the local water made cloudy, frothy, tainted-tasting tea, where the right bottled water made clean, good-tasting tea from the same Lipton bags. When I say "right", I'm referring to the fact that one of the two largest local brands of bottled water in Southern California, Arrowhead, made tea as dirty as the tap's. The other largest local brand was good, though.

Then we moved to Alaska where our local community well produced water that was almost sweet.

Then we moved back to Southern California where, now that we'd lived with better, we couldn't stomach the local so we turned to bottled water exclusively.

Now we live in Northern Washington where the local tap water is better tasting and cleaner than a lot of bottled waters. So, we're local again.

Still love the mouthfeel of bottled sparkling water, though, and agree with John Tomasso that San Pellegrino's the best. [/list]

My wine shopping and I have never had a problem. Just a perpetual race between the bankruptcy court and Hell.--Rogov

A very good question for people who have not built up the microbiological immunities that your body must have in order for you not to experience Montezuma’s revenge. When traveling to any part of the country I drink bottled water. I drink it because fluorinated water is a cancer-causing agent and the chlorine is obnoxious. At home we have a special water filter to strip out 99.9%of all the crap in tap water. Anyone who drinks tap water is an uninformed consumer and should be on the web looking into the danger that is in the water.

Fluoride Is A Carcinogen Fluoride was found to be an equivocal carcinogen by the National Cancer Institute Toxicological Program.1 Further studies by the New Jersey Department of Health have now confirmed a 6.9 fold increase in bone cancer in young males.2 Earlier studies had found a 5% increase in all types of cancers in fluoridated communities.3 References 1. Maurer, et. al., Fluoride an equivocal carcinogen J. National Cancer Institute 82, 1118-26, 1990 2. Cohn, Perry D. Ph.D. An Epidemiological Report on Drinking Water Fluoridation and Osteosarcoma in Young Males New Jersey Department of Health, Environmental Health Service, Trenton NJ November 8, 1992

If the bird flu hits the water will not be safe as it will be a pathogen. I strongly suggest you stockpile two to three month of water now before any problem comes along, food as well.

The most recent data on that web site was from 1998 - and most of it was from earlier research. I would be interested in seeing something recent - and a little less hysterical.

Have you stocked your arms for when the bird flu hits? Is the arsenal up to date?

I don't believe Montezuma ever made any trips this far north. This country is blessed (because of local health departments, mostly) with some of the cleanest water on the planet and I can't *imagine* drinking bottled water everywhere here! People all over this globe are dying daily because of polluted and impure water supplies. Not inhabitants of the United States. This is one of the *few* things I don't worry about in this country! I don't worry about it much *personally* because I don't drink that much water - mostly wine, coffee, sparkling water, juices , scotch and skim milk, bovine - and I'm sure they all contain poisons if one ingests a high enough dosage. But, I am well hydrated, thank you. *Philosophically,* I worry about it even less.

Also, I must be up to date on my microbiological immunities since I never had any problem drinking the water in Mexico and on one occasion paddy water in Vietnam.

Oh, and chlorine is my friend. I don't find it obnoxious at all - use it in the form of household bleach to sanitize all the work surfaces in my kitchens daily. I find salmonella, listeria, staph and escherichia coli obnoxious.

A very good question for people who have not built up the microbiological immunities that your body must have in order for you not to experience Montezuma’s revenge. When traveling to any part of the country I drink bottled water. I drink it because fluorinated water is a cancer-causing agent and the chlorine is obnoxious. At home we have a special water filter to strip out 99.9%of all the crap in tap water. Anyone who drinks tap water is an uninformed consumer and should be on the web looking into the danger that is in the water.

Fluoride Is A Carcinogen Fluoride was found to be an equivocal carcinogen by the National Cancer Institute Toxicological Program.1 Further studies by the New Jersey Department of Health have now confirmed a 6.9 fold increase in bone cancer in young males.2 Earlier studies had found a 5% increase in all types of cancers in fluoridated communities.3 References 1. Maurer, et. al., Fluoride an equivocal carcinogen J. National Cancer Institute 82, 1118-26, 1990 2. Cohn, Perry D. Ph.D. An Epidemiological Report on Drinking Water Fluoridation and Osteosarcoma in Young Males New Jersey Department of Health, Environmental Health Service, Trenton NJ November 8, 1992

If the bird flu hits the water will not be safe as it will be a pathogen. I strongly suggest you stockpile two to three month of water now before any problem comes along, food as well.

One more thing while it's on my mind:

If one drank the 8 glasses of water per day - and it was tap water in one of the United States' communities [65% at last count] that flouridates its water - recommended by the seemingly omnipresent water enthusiasts, one would be ingesting less than 2 mg of flouride daily, an amount, I believe all agree is not high enough to cause any major problems, even over a lifetime. Not a problem for me, but like Swift, I worry about Tom, Dick and Harry.

Joseph, the question to always ask is, since the introduction of substance xxx, has life expectancy gone up or down? In the case of fluoridation, the answer is unequivocal- it's gone up, concommitant with a decrease in, ahh, um, caries. (that was a terrible pun)

If the bird flu hits the water will not be safe as it will be a pathogen. I strongly suggest you stockpile two to three month of water now before any problem comes along, food as well.

Why worry about bird flu? The Creationists and IDers say there's no such thing as evolution, ergo, there won't be any mutations in bird flu that will allow it to bridge the inter-species barrier. Don't you feel better now?

Regarding fluoride, the dental association is raising the alarm for kids who drink nothing but bottled water. They recommend buying the brands that have a small amount of fluoride to help protect their teeth.

In Albuquerque and other places in New Mexico, we have arsenic in our water. Some say trace amounts of poisonous elements actually help our body's immune system--sort of like homeopathy.

Amy's cousin is a taste (engineer? biologist? chemist?) at Poland Springs in Maine. I was telling her how much I like the consistency of Fiji water and she responded with disdain that, "Fiji is all reverse osmosis" - imagine my surprise to hear that argument coming out of a non-wine geek's mouth!

While I was hearing it from a jaded individual, her arguments for the purity of Poland Springs were very convincing. She also mentioned that Poland Springs changed the glue on their labels (this would be a few years back) but had to change again when trace amounts of the glue was permeating the plastic and flavoring the water! Now that's purity!

At home, I filter my tap water (why not?) but when I’m on the go I drink a lot of bottled water and try to buy Poland Springs. I don't like Desani (sp) or Aquafina as they taste like they’ve been sitting around for a long time. When I do drink it, I still think Fiji has a great roundness to it, but I don't buy it anymore as it is too much money.

Other than that, I'm a big fan of sparkling mineral water and flavored sparkling water. I even get cravings for it (as if it were a sweet or salty snack).

Joe, as I mentioned above, Janet shares your preference for Fiji Water -- I've become an expert at finding the stuff on sale and storing cases in the basement.

The RO point is very interesting -- I know that Fiji does have water problems -- some of the smaller islands have only rain water collectors, and Suva has some scarcities -- primarily I understand because the water mains were designed in colonial times for a town of 20,000 people, and the population is now 100,000 and growing.

It's puzzled me frankly that Fiji Water touts the filtering effect of the volcanic rock, especially in an area where you could expect salt water intrusions.

Does Amy's cousin know if Fiji Water is really a product of RO?

Might be a useful argument when the cache of water starts running low. :-) [Although, Janet likes the stuff so much, I'd probably go anyway.]

Stuart Yaniger wrote:Joseph, the question to always ask is, since the introduction of substance xxx, has life expectancy gone up or down? In the case of fluoridation, the answer is unequivocal- it's gone up, concommitant with a decrease in, ahh, um, caries. (that was a terrible pun)

Gasp, you mean there are fewer of us because of flouridation? Hey, wait a minute, that might not be a bad thing!